Shading Analysis for a Zero Energy House

Las Vegas, Nevada, is one of the country’s most rapidly growing cities. To accommodate this growth, a great deal of home building takes place in Clark County, where the city is located. Builders can sell virtually as many houses as they can construct. All of these houses require utility services that, in general, have to be developed. These, of course, include water, electrical power and natural gas. With the high cooling loads required in this environment, the summer demand peaks for electricity are particularly severe. This paper represents a case study of the effects of shading for a planned zero energy home for the Southern Nevada area. The main emphasis of the research is placed on the methods of energy conservation for residential construction type housing and considers the advantages of the use of two different types of horizontal shading for the given geographical location. The technique employed for the analysis is a computer simulation package Energy 10 version 1.6. The software allows modeling and simulating of building performance based on the inputs such as geographical location, building type, orientation, construction materials used, and others. The model selected for this study is a single-family one story, 1610 ft² residential house with north facing facade.